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Structural Transition from Helices to Hemihelices

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posted on 2014-04-23, 15:39 authored by Jia Liu, Jiangshui Huang, Tianxiang Su, Katia Bertoldi, David R. Clarke

Helices are amongst the most common structures in nature and in some cases, such as tethered plant tendrils, a more complex but related shape, the hemihelix forms. In its simplest form it consists of two helices of opposite chirality joined by a perversion. A recent, simple experiment using elastomer strips reveals that hemihelices with multiple reversals of chirality can also occur, a richness not anticipated by existing analyses. Here, we show through analysis and experiments that the transition from a helical to a hemihelical shape, as well as the number of perversions, depends on the height to width ratio of the strip's cross-section. Our findings provides the basis for the deterministic manufacture of a variety of complex three-dimensional shapes from flat strips.

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